


dying just to meet you

by JamieGaylePiff



Series: Danger Days: Year 10 [3]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, POV Second Person, Zones Culture and Customs (Fabulous Killjoys), Zones Religion and Lore (Fabulous Killjoys), also yes this is from partys pov. im still taging the girl first tho, i will always be peppering in my headcanons, no beta we die like the fab four, yes this is a plotfic yes im still tagging those things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27380113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieGaylePiff/pseuds/JamieGaylePiff
Summary: For day 3 of Danger Days Year 10, "Party Poison"!
Relationships: The Girl & Party Poison
Series: Danger Days: Year 10 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995625
Comments: 18
Kudos: 13





	dying just to meet you

**Author's Note:**

> umm just a warning that like. LITERALLY the first thing that happens in this fic is that party dies lol. and the rest happens when theyre dead. so theres a LOT of discussion of death
> 
> also somewhere in here i make a reference to being a familiar. this is the term i use for followers of the phoenix witch who collect the masks of the dead.
> 
> also after the first 3k i was just trying to end the fucking fic already bc originally i didnt even plan to write it from partys pov, just ABOUT them but from the girls pov, and you can really tell! so im sorry about that. anyways this isnt late because its 11:59 where i am

You went to the City expecting to die. 

Your expectations, of course, are met. 

You get to hug The Girl one last time before you go, though, so it's alright. 

As Korse raises his blaster to your chin, you look past him. You look past him to Fun Ghoul, who's rushing Jet Star and The Girl out of the building. As Korse says  _ keep running,  _ you do not make eye contact with him. You think you are probably supposed to be looking at him, this man that is about to kill you, but you do not care about him in the slightest right now.

Right now, all you care about is looking at Fun Ghoul, shoving Jet Star and The Girl out of the doors and closing them behind the two so that they, at least, will get out safely.

It is the last thing you see before you die.

* * *

To say that you wake up later would be incorrect. There is no wakefulness to it. You are still dead.

You gain an awareness, though.

You see a figure shrouded in dark feathers, and you know who She is. You do not believe in Her, but you suppose that that does not mean She isn't real. 

She turns to you. Her face is not a face, but a mask. Not like your mask, that only covers your eyes. Her face is blank and white and smooth as porcelain. It's impossible to tell if the eye-holes are truly holes, or if they are just painted on.

"Party Poison," She says. That's you. "You're dead."

"I know."

"Talking back to a goddess," She mutters. "Fuckin' typical."

The expletive shocks you as much as it doesn't. You have never worshipped the Phoenix Witch, and did not expect to see Her when you died. You had no expectations.

"Anyways," She continues, "this is just a heads-up. I can't take you to the other side until I have your mask, and that isn't gonna happen for a long time."

You remember learning in school that you should never say  _ anyways _ . It's grammatically incorrect, your teacher had said, so you should always drop the s. It was in the same lesson where you were told to always say  _ because _ , never  _ 'cause _ . 

Since arriving in the desert, you have always said  _ anyways _ . You wonder if the Witch knows She is being defiant with Her language. She probably doesn't, or doesn't care. The only other person who ever seemed to share your passion for grammar, or lack thereof, was NewsAGoGo.

"Fuck that. How long?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out, kid," She snaps at you, and then your awareness fades.

* * *

That is not entirely accurate, because you are still  _ aware _ . You still  _ exist _ . You can still  _ think _ .

You are aware that your soul, your essence, has been confined to your mask. It is very difficult to summon up any understanding of what's going on around you, though.

You remember that you had left your mask at the Diner when you went to the battery. You all had. None of you expected to make it back. The worst thing that could have happened wasn't your faces being broadcast all over the city, but your masks, your selves, being trapped behind gleaming white walls.

(You have never believed in the Phoenix Witch, but you have always been superstitious.)

You try to stay present, try to be  _ there _ for when your family comes to deliver you to whatever's next. It doesn't happen.

Instead, someone comes, far too soon for it to be any of the rescue crew, and picks up your mask. You had left it on the counter, in plain sight, because you didn't want to make anyone dig around for it. In hindsight, it wasn't a smart decision, because now somebody is stealing it.

Remembering that the Phoenix Witch said it would be a while, you pass out of what vague awareness you had.

* * *

You are now simply existing.

What do you do when there is nothing to do? You thought of yourself as existing, but right now, you don't think you really do exist. Certainly you did at one point, but you don't know how long ago that was. You are not alive, but are you truly dead when your soul has not been passed on?

Those questions seem like something Cherri Cola would be interested in, now that he's been getting into poetry. You heard that NewsAGoGo convinced Dr. Death Defying to give their brother his own radio segment, which you think is a little funny. Agent Cherri Cola, the only person to charge into Battery City and make it out alive, with a poetry broadcast? 

It's not  _ that _ funny.

* * *

Eventually, you become aware again.

You are not sure if you exist when you are aware. At least now, you are in an actual place. Not one that you recognize, but a place nonetheless.

You are surrounded by cracked desert for almost as far as you can see. In the distance, there are mountains. In front of you, there is a corpse strung up like a scarecrow. It is maskless, and you hope, for the person that it used to be, that this is because the mask was fed into a mailbox and not because they never had a mask to begin with.

The only other notable thing about the corpse is that it is dressed in a ragged fur coat. You cannot imagine why anyone would wear something like that out in the desert, but to each their own, you supposed.

From behind you, there is a cough, and you turn.

You see a person, taller than you by at least a foot, wearing a long fur coat and a blue dress. It's long enough that the hem is probably dragging through the sand. The person's hair is very long and very blond, and ze's wearing sunglasses.

"Hello," ze says. "I see you've become acquainted with my corpse."

You do not think that there is a way to really react to that, so you shrug.

"I'm Lucky Thirteen," ze says, after it becomes apparent that you are not going to respond to zir. Ze was probably trying to make a joke, but you have always been bad with jokes. "You're Party Poison, right?"

"I've never heard of you."

Ze shrugs. "I don't expect you to have. I've been dead for a very long time. I just wanted to tell you some things that the Witch didn't. She doesn't fit the image of a serene, detached goddess, but she's about as cryptic as if she did." Ze snorts.

"What do you have?"

"Nothing, really. Just..." ze shrugs again. There's a lot of that going on in this conversation. "She said that She didn't tell you how long you were going to have to wait, is all. I think you deserve to know. It's awful to sit there and wonder if anyone cares enough to send you on."

"I wasn't wondering that. I know my friends care," you snap.

"Sure, for now." Ze pauses. "Twelve years and three days, though. That's how long. At this point, eleven years and about nine months. Give or take a few days."

There's a lot of ways you could respond to that.

_ How the fuck does that happen _ is one of them, and it's the one you choose. It's a pointless question. You know how. Someone robbed your fucking diner, probably saw it was empty and figured the fab four were out and about and had left all their valuables open to looting. Finders keepers, in the desert. Probably they saw your mask sitting on the counter, right where you'd left it so nobody'd have to look too hard, and grabbed it. Probably assumed they could hold it for ransom, or just sell it off to the highest bidder.

Probably they felt like a real scumbag, once news of your death broke. Probably they were hiding it, making sure nobody could see evidence of their crime.

Stealing masks is the lowest of the fucking low, and everyone knows it. Sure, Tommy will sell replicas, but never the real thing unless they're blank. 

Selling souls is too much, even for someone like him.

Lucky Thirteen doesn't answer you. Ze probably figures you know. 

Instead, ze asks a question. "Do you know where we are?"

You shake your head.

"Dead Man's Land. It used to be called Death Valley, back in my day. That was about… what year is it?"

"2019."

Ze laughs. You don't get what's funny. "Sixty fuckin' years," ze breathes, and you still don't understand.

"I was executed here for… I don't think they even told me, you know?" Ze gestures at zir body behind you, strung up for everyone passing by to see like a garland. "I don't think they even told me why they were killing me," ze repeats, trailing off.

"And?" You prompt, after a minute. Lucky Thirteen is probably the most confusing person you've ever met.

"Oh, right." Ze coughs. You think that ze must be nervous. No one person fidgets as much as ze does. "Anyways, I was executed here about sixty years ago. It was called Death Valley when I died, but within the year people started calling it Dead Man's Land. Do you know why?"

The name is familiar to you, but you've never been. You're sure it must be called that for a reason, if you can just remember…

"Something about a curse," you say, and ze grins.

Zir teeth are the sharpest things you've ever seen. They remind you of coyotes, or of a predator. You are struck with the realization that whatever Lucky Thirteen is, ze is not human, and never was, zir possession of a soul be damned.

"I cursed this entire place with my dying breath. I said that anyone who came here would die, as long as I was here. So as long as my mask sat here, on my body, without anyone collecting it? This place was doomed to be a fucking wasteland."

Ze's still smiling. You think, at this point, that it has turned from an expression of joy to some kind of threat directed at the past. As you wait for zir to continue, though, zir expression shifts to something more neutral. Not somber, though. Not by a long shot.

"It only got delivered to the Witch this last week. I would have liked to have been told how long I needed to hold on for."

It's hard to get a read on zir age, but you think that ze's younger than you by more than a few years. Ze had said that zir mask only got passed on recently, meaning that the curse ze cast lasted for the full sixty years ze'd been dead. Where someone that young got that kind of rage, you don't know.

(The curse is not odd to you. Before the days of the Phoenix Witch, who you know is not ancient, power flowed freely. You assume that Lucky Thirteen was a witch in life, and you are correct.)

"Twelve years is a long way off from sixty," is all you think to say to zir.

"You're right," ze says, "it is. Don't think your friends have forgotten you, Party Poison. Your Girl is going to be the one to see you to the Witch. I don't know much, but I do know that."

And then ze's gone.

Soon enough, so is the place that ze took you. Dead Man's Land. Death Valley. Whichever.

And soon after that, so are you.

* * *

In twelve years, you don't have a lot left to do except think.

So thinking is mostly what you do.

You know that you won't be forgotten. You're Party fucking Poison, after all, the leader of the Fabulous Four, greatest killjoys of them all. You'll only be forgotten when the entire desert is dead, and even then, you're sure that your memory's already been immortalized in BLI's files.

Being forgotten in general isn't what you're worried about. Hell, you'd even be perfectly fine if everyone you'd ever known wiped you clean from their memories.

No, you're worried about The Girl.

Lucky Thirteen had said she would be the one to deliver your mask to the Witch.

You hope that she doesn't spend twelve years looking for it. That's longer than she's already been alive for. You told Lucky Thirteen that twelve wasn't anything close to sixty, and you were right, but it's still a long time.

You don't want your kid to hold on to your death for that long. It can't be good for her.

* * *

Idly, you wonder who will tell The Girl about who she is.

(You are not the kind of person to think about telling her  _ what _ she is, because you know what she is. She is human, like you. She is human like her mother was and she is human like Lucky Thirteen wasn't and isn't.) 

You don't think that Dr. Death Defying will do it. He's only good at delivering information when he doesn't have to see how you react to it. You can only see him being the one to break the news if it was announced over radio broadcast, and you don't think he would do something like that.

Cherri Cola… You can't see it, somehow. Oh, he knows about The Girl's mother, knows how she was drac'd a month or so into pregnancy and somehow gave birth, but you can't see him being the one to tell The Girl. He's never been good at handling delicate situations.

With those two eliminated, you find out that literally nobody else knows.

That might be for the best. You don't want anyone putting the world on your Girl's shoulders, and that's what the entire desert would do if they knew about her.

* * *

(You're wrong, of course, though you won't find that out until three years after you die, nine years before your mask gets dropped in a mailbox.)

(After you died, Cherri Cola had taken The Girl to live with him. She had run away from the radio station once already, and everybody agreed it would be best if she stayed with him.

Two years after that, Cherri Cola will take The Girl aside and tell her everything. She will run away to her room, and by the time she wakes up the next morning, Cherri Cola will have left on an undercover mission to the city that'll last for as long as it needs to.

Instead of staying with Dr. Death Defying, The Girl will do what she's already done once, and run away.)

* * *

After that, you try not to think too much for a long while. You try not to exist at all, in fact.

* * *

Then, you do not wake up, but you do become aware. More aware than you usually are, that is, which is a very low bar.

You are at the place where Lucky Thirteen took you. Dead Man's Land is the name you know it by, but ze had said it used to be something else. Death Valley. The name isn't too different, you suppose.

This time, it is not Lucky Thirteen that has called you here.

It is the Phoenix Witch.

"So we meet again," you say, and She laughs. It sounds like the screeching of a crow.

"So we do, Party Poison." 

The last time you'd met, you hadn't really noticed Her voice. You had been a little busy, what with having died and everything. This time, though, you pay more attention, starved as you are for any kind of sensory input.

She sounds withered and old. She sounds dead. She sounds like a bird screeching. She sounds like a dead bird. You are not poetic.

"Do you know how long it's been, Party Poison?" She asks, tilting her head. Like a bird. Always like a bird.

You think that if you took off the mask she wears for a face, you wouldn't even see a mouth, just a beak.

"Nah."

"Three years."

That surprises you, for some reason. Sure, you'd tried not existing for a hot second there, but you hadn't thought so much time would pass so quickly while that was happening.

"Almost," She amends. "It's Halloween. Normally, I wouldn't give enough of a shit to lead an unclaimed soul back to the land of the living to see their families, but you are an exception."

"Why?"

"Don't look a gift bird in the beak, asshole. It doesn't have anything to do with you."

She snaps her fingers, and suddenly you're in a city that you don't recognize. It's ruins, at least, which means it isn't BLI, but also, it's ruins. If it was safe to be out here, people would be out here.

The sky is dark, and it takes a few moments of looking around for you to discover the reason that the Phoenix Witch sent you here. 

On a street corner, there is a mailbox. Not just a mailbox, like they had in the City, but a Witch's mailbox. Candles are lit around it, and standing in front of it is a girl.

If you didn't know any better, you would think she was ten, but your Girlie has always looked young for her age. You know from what the Phoenix Witch told you that she's thirteen now.

You don't know why she's here, in this city of all places, but you drift closer to her. You didn't raise her to be religious, but Fun Ghoul and Jet Star did. You have no idea how that's turned out, this far down the line, but she'd always celebrated the more somber aspects of Halloween with Jet and Ghoul back when you were alive.

That feels weird to think.  _ Back when you were alive _ doesn't feel like something you should be thinking about yourself. It doesn't feel allowed.

As you get closer, you realize that she's talking. Apologizing for not celebrating before, mainly, saying that she hadn't been in a good place to do that. You understand. You've never been in the same boat, but you get it.

She also apologizes to you, specifically. Apparently, whoever stole your mask hadn't taken anybody else's. It figures, of course, but your Girlie says she's sorry for not finding it yet.

You want to tell her that it doesn't matter, that she shouldn't spend her life literally picking up your shit, but you can't. You literally, physically cannot, because you're sure she won't be able to hear you.

As she chatters, you notice that there's a mask tied through one of her belt loops. You don't recognize it, but it's white and has pink and red flowers painted on it.

She keeps talking for the rest of the night, telling you about what's been happening to her.

She tells you not to worry about if she's mad that you didn't tell her about her mom, and  _ wow _ , Cherri told her? You didn't think he'd be able to. You also hadn't considered that she might be angry about you not telling her, but then again, you hadn't really considered that you wouldn't be there to explain yourself, either.

A stupid mistake, really. Stupider than leaving your mask out in plain sight for anybody to steal, even.

* * *

The Witch brings you back next year. And the next. And the one after that. When she's fifteen, your Girlie reveals that she's changing her name to  _ Bottled Andromeda _ . You try to tell her that it's a beautiful name for a beautiful girl, but you know she can't hear you.

The Witch keeps bringing you to see her on Halloween, though, and you're grateful. You think you'd be able to keep a better eye on her from the real afterlife, whatever that's like, but you're not there yet, and you appreciate the Phoenix Witch letting you keep up with Andromeda.

* * *

When she's seventeen, you begin to get scared.

Seven years, and she's still looking for your mask. At this rate, she won't have been the one to deliver you because whoever found it decided it would be best for her to do it herself. No, it'll have been because she found the damn thing herself, after fucking  _ years _ of looking for it.

That's no way to live a life.

* * *

You're not sure exactly when it is you gain some awareness after Bottled Andromeda's twenty-second Halloween. 

The first thing you notice is that you're outside the Paradise Motel, or whatever Tommy Chow Mein's calling his shitty little shop these days. The second thing you notice is that Bottled Andromeda is sitting on the ground, back leaned up against the wall, your mask in her hands. She looks shell-shocked.

The third thing you notice is the killjoy standing over her shoulder, face obscured by the mask you had always assumed was hers. White, with pink and red roses delicately painted on.

The fourth thing you notice, you notice far too late. It's the group of killjoys headed by a guy around your age dressed all in white, who you don't realize is approaching until the leader snatches your mask right out of Andie's hands.

* * *

Things float in and out after that. 

You're there when the white-haired leader announces that he's going to take your place and steal your color, which is odald, because he's dyed his hair red. That's always been Kobra's color. You're yellow.

You're there when he cements his legacy by using someone just trying to get by as target practice. You hope that this is not how the desert remembers you. (You hope that the desert remembers you by Andromeda, who tries to tell him that the guy he's shooting at is still alive. He doesn't listen to her, of course, but you're proud of her for standing up to him.)

You're even there when he kills Dr. Death-Defying. It doesn't surprise you that some paranoid rebel leader wannabe took him out, honestly. You're more shocked that he even made it this far.

(You are not there when Bottled Andromeda dies. You are not there when she meets the Phoenix Witch and discovers that she is her other mother.)

(You are not there when she decides to infiltrate the city.)

* * *

You are there for when Andie does the deed, though. 

You see, vaguely, the girl you raised from a toddler blow up into everything you never truly expected of * her. (Because the thing is, you wanted her to be happy more than you wanted her to take down a tyrannical government.)

You see, in what can best be described as washed out colors, as people celebrate. As  _ she _ celebrates. 

And then things snap into clarity when Val Velocity hands your mask back to your girlie, and you have a realization.

* * *

Your realization is this:

Bottled Andromeda does not simply possess the ability to power electronics, but to power souls.

* * *

It isn't until a few hours later that she sees you. At least, you think she does. You're not sure at first.

She turns from talking to a blue-haired killjoy that you don't recognize and looks directly at you. She doesn't gasp, but she does stiffen, and her eyes widen.

"I'm sorry, Vaya," she says, "but I need to go."

Whoever she was talking to waves her off, and she rushes away. You follow her, of course, until she's alone. You're still in the city, but you don't recognize this district.

"Party," Andromeda says, and you're conflicted.

You don't know whether to joke or be serious. She's an adult by now, so there's no real reason to act all mature, but this is a serious moment. You never could handle those, though, not when they were personal.

You opt for smiling. You have no idea how you look right now, don't know if you've got blood on you or how bad your hair is, and you haven't thought about that for over a decade now, but you care all of a sudden. Still, you smile, and then Andromeda is barrelling into you.

You're half-surprised she doesn't pass right through, honestly.

She's still shorter than you, but not by much, now. You wrap your arms around her automatically in a hug, and it's a while before either of you speaks.

* * *

"I'm sorry I didn't-" is the first thing Andie tries to tell you. It's only tries because you cannot have the first thing she says to you in twelve years be a fucking  _ apology _ .

"I don't wanna hear it, kid," you tell her. "I never wanted you to spend your entire life lookin' for my mask. Never wanted you to have to spend your life doing any one thing, really."

You've moved so that the both of you are sitting on the ground, now. She's in front of you and you're in front of her and you're both cross-legged so your knees are touching. It's weird. You can't feel the ground but you can feel Andie where she touches you.

She's holding your mask in her lap, toying with the string, not looking at you. You can't make eye contact, either. It's why you're looking at her hands instead of her face.

"Is it better if I wasn't really looking for  _ your _ mask, just masks in general?" She asks.

You're pretty sure you know the right answer for this.

"It's not better or worse, motorbaby, but it'd probably be healthier for you if that was the case," you say.

That sounded weird, even coming out of your own mouth. When did you get so smart-sounding?

"Okay," she says. "Okay. 'Cause I wasn't… I mean, I guess at first I was. Looking for your mask, I mean. But then it got to be that I figured I'd never find it, but at that point I really liked being a familiar, so I didn't stop, but I think I helped more people. I know that you were never really into all that, but. Yeah."

"You're you, not me. I'm glad you're not trying to be me," you say, and her face screws up.

"Yeah, I'm not  _ Val _ ," she agrees, and you laugh, because she really isn't, and that guy isn't you. He's just an asshole.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at jg-piff dot tumblr dot com :] please ask me more about my ocs they come with lore


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